but this is how it really happened
by IdesofMay
Summary: A collection of unrelated time-travel one-shots. Number two: "Zack's first thought was, bizarrely, pity. Sephiroth had never botched anything in his life, and for his first mistake to be this – he would never forgive himself."
1. Second verse, same as the first

A/N: I don't remember the first time travel fic I read for FF7, but I do remember when I noticed a lot of them – summer 2008. I remember being frustrated because, despite their differences, in many ways they were all the same. Naturally I started writing my own epic fic (that was different in all the important ways), but since I write at about the same rate as glaciers, many of my ideas were introduced before I got even halfway through my (still unfinished epic). But many of them weren't. This is a collection of short ideas that I never saw in other fics. I haven't been really in the FF7 fandom for a while, so let me know if you have seen these ideas elsewhere – obviously I think they are worth reading!

Every chapter should be a new one-shot, of a new idea. I've got a few already written, but see the glacier comment – no promises on posting.

* * *

><p>Tifa knew Cloud was gone when she walked in the room. He slept differently, when he was gone. Her footsteps woke him up, as they always did, and she took a deep calming breath, before running over to hold his shoulders down as he woke up.<p>

He was disoriented at first – he always was.

"Mrs. Lockheart…? Am I dead?" he asked, when his eyes had focused on her.

"No Cloud, I'm Tifa," she said. He never seemed to remember, so she had given up trying to keep secrets. "It's a long story, and you need to keep calm."

"You're not Tifa," he said. "You're old!"

"Cloud, stay calm," Tifa said. "Just listen – "

But it was too late. He tried to sit up, and he didn't realize how fast or how strong he was.

She cursed quietly, holding her bloody nose amid the splinters of the bed. Cloud gasped next to her, having caught sight of his face in the mirror. "I'm old!" he exclaimed. "My eyes… and my hands!" He was fascinated by his calluses.

"It's a long story," Tifa repeated, shaking a cure out of her bangle. "Some day you'll hear it before you break the bed. Just…try to walk around slowly and get used to it. I'll explain."

She worked through Nibelheim and Meteor and the children fast enough, having had some practice at this by now. "And then he, that is, you, found some way to switch you – you and him, so he's back there, trying to change it all, and you're here." That part never really got easier. How could she explain something she couldn't understand?

He'd almost gotten the hang of moving around without breaking things. Tifa wanted to believe it came easier to him every time, but couldn't quite let herself.

"So...I'm not a SOLDIER…" he said, studying his eyes in the small mirror.

"Not in name," Tifa sighed. She had just told him he'd saved the world twice, and he fixated on what hadn't come with it. She could almost hate him, sometimes.

"I have to mind the bar," she said, making to leave. "You need some time to think. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Can I ask you questions I have tonight, after you close the bar?" he asked. He looked so anxious that she smiled.

"Of course you can," she said.

Edge didn't have as many people as Midgar had had, but more of them needed to drown sorrows than even the residents of Sector Seven. She never had a really quiet night. After wiping down the last counter, she walked slowly upstairs, and found him again asleep on the other bed. She smiled, tucked the blanket higher around his chin, and crept off to sleep in Denzel and Marlene's room. In none of the twenty-eight times before had he stayed awake long enough to actually ask her anything.

He slept differently, when he was gone.

* * *

><p>She was working on lunch for Denzel when he appeared the next morning. He'd changed into half of Cloud's armor (that made 24 times he'd tried to get dressed, and 5 times he'd just come down in yesterday's pajamas).<p>

"Good morning, Cloud," Tifa said. "I'm just making lunches, but I can get you breakfast in a few moments." She waited a moment, and-

"I can make breakfast," he offered quietly.

Tifa bent her head and smiled behind her hair. This was a constant. She'd said no the first several times, but given in once and discovered cooking skills were evidently something Cloud had once possessed but lost. "I've set out some eggs and chopped vegetables if you want to make us omelets," she said, and gestured to the kitchen half-hidden behind the bar. "I'll pour us some orange juice when I'm done here. Just don't forget – "

She'd miffed the order again. She cursed quietly and abandoned Denzel's sandwich to rescue Cloud from the sticky mess of broken egg in his hand. "Just don't forget that you're stronger now," she said.

"I'm sorry," he said to the egg remains. He had yet to meet her eyes this morning.

"It's my fault," Tifa said breezily, "You break the egg a full half the time, and I never remember to warn you early enough." She tried for a smile, but he wasn't looking to see it, so she set down a wet towel and a fresh egg in front of him, and went back to finish Denzel's sandwich. It was strange, the way some of this got easier and some never did.

* * *

><p>Conversation was difficult for the first few days. The problem was, Cloud was never much of a talker, and after the first seven or eight swaps, Tifa had memorized everything he could remember happening in his last several days before waking up in Seventh Heaven. Similarly, she rapidly got sick to death of explaining the answers to the five or six questions he always asked (how did his mother die? how fast was he if he really tried?). Instead she tried to find new books they had both read as children, or to read the ones he mentioned so she'd have something to talk about next time. It got easier once he was ready to do deliveries.<p>

Tifa wasn't sure what would happen if this Cloud died in her Cloud's body, so she cancelled all deliveries until Swap Eight. That was the first one that had been really successful. Cloud had been gone for four weeks, and she couldn't afford to lose the extra income from the delivery service. So now she gave him a couple days to acclimatize, and then put him to work. Only deliveries in Edge and Kalm though. He was almost laughably bad with a sword, and the monsters got worse away from the cities. After Swap Fifteen she bought him a gun, but she never got used to seeing him without a sword on his back.

When he came home and talked about deliveries, it was almost normal. Except when she forgot it wasn't. "Remember when they drank all their stock?" she laughed one night after he'd delivered bottling equipment to the bar in Kalm. Her Cloud would have replied that they thought they would "drink it rather than baptize the Meteor with it." This Cloud stopped smiling and shook his head.

That was one part that never became easier.

Denzel helped her remember too. He'd stopped really talking to her Cloud after Swap Eight, the long one, but he still liked the current Cloud. They would sit after dinner with heads bent over some motorcycle schematic. Denzel never mentioned to Cloud that he explained the same advances in mechanics every swap. He just appeared less and less when her Cloud was around. Marlene didn't speak to either Cloud much any more. She asked Barrett to take her with him on another oil scouting after Swap Ten and hadn't been back for more than a few days at a time since. Barrett smiled apologetically at Tifa every time they returned. "Jus' a few days this time," he always said. "Which Cloud is it now?"

Like "How has the weather been?" or "I trust business is good?" Except 'Which Cloud?' was always the first question.

* * *

><p>Yuffie visited a few weeks in. She and Tifa were having orange juice and laughing over Cait's latest fiasco at the WRO when Cloud appeared again on the stairwell. He'd mastered the art of the armor five days ago (only Swap Twelve and Swap Seventeen had done it faster). Tifa stopped laughing.<p>

"Cloud, this is Yuffie," she said. "Yuffie, Cloud."

"…oh," said Yuffie. She'd met swaps before, but never this far in.

"I'll make breakfast for three," said Cloud after an uncomfortably long pause. When he had disappeared into the kitchen Yuffie stared at Tifa until-

"Number twenty-nine," whispered Tifa. "He's been here 20 days."

Yuffie finished her orange juice in one angry gulp. "Do we even know what will happen to us if he succeeds?" She spoke softly but flung her sharp words like shuriken. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to never have existed!"

"He's trying to make it better," Tifa said helplessly. She'd had this argument with Cid, with Reeve already. Vincent didn't care and Nanaki wouldn't intrude, but it was only a matter of time until Yuffie started it. Why did they think she had any sway over what he did anymore?

"Better," said Yuffie bitterly. "He won't make it any better for me. He only goes back to a few days before the end of the war."

Tifa tried to think of something to say, but there was no real excuse.

"The past can't be changed, Tifa," said Yuffie. "That's the only thing that makes it bearable."

Tifa wanted desperately to scream that she was lecturing the wrong person. "It's not _his_ fault," she said instead, gesturing to the kitchen. "Please be civil."

"I know." Yuffie sounded almost as tired as Tifa. "I'll try."

She did try. She told more stories about Reeve and Cait Sith, and about the pranks she had pulled on her father as a child. They all laughed all through breakfast, and in the afternoon she took Cloud and Denzel out to obliterate a custom sweeper using Knights of the Round.

"I can't stay," she said as she helped Tifa clean the bar that night. She had been planning on a week's visit. " I can't watch this. I'm sorry."

Tifa nodded, and they finished the bar.

"What happened?" asked Yuffie. She had paused at the door and was looking beyond Tifa's shoulder at the staircase to the bedrooms.

"We all know what happened," Tifa said.

* * *

><p>At day forty Cloud made his first major departure. They were designing a delivery route over breakfast. Tifa was tracing the roads he would have to travel on the map held down by their glasses when he grabbed her hand, making her look up.<p>

"I don't care about Soldier," he said. "I don't care about what the people in Nibelheim would have said. I like it here, and now."

Tifa was stunned into a few moments silence. Slowly she reached up her free hand to touch his cheek. "So do I," she smiled.

* * *

><p>Time passed. The orders to distant customers piled up. Cloud made breakfasts and Tifa made dinners and they talked and laughed. She taught him some boxing. She knew his mind didn't remember anything, but she hoped that maybe his body would, that maybe somehow she could make his future easier for him. On the eighty-fifth day she went up to the roof after closing the bar. She wasn't surprised when he joined her. They watched the stars silently for a while.<p>

"…It's all going to happen to me," he said. "Nibelheim burning, and Zack dying, and Meteor and geostigma…"

She nodded.

"…I'm afraid…" he whispered.

"You won't remember it's coming," she said gently. "And it will all pass in time. Eventually you'll get here. I don't think it's such a bad world now."

"But I must."

She glanced at him. "I suppose so."

"And it won't pass, in time, for you. Which iteration am I?" He'd never asked before.

"Twenty-nine," she said, looking back at the stars. "At eighty-five days, my Cloud's been gone two weeks more than the last longest time." That was Swap Twenty-six.

"Your Cloud," he said, and they were silent again for a long time.

"Do you remember our promise?" she finally asked. "Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me." Her voice lilted over the familiar words. "Except he doesn't. He just keeps doing this to me, over and over…" She blinked and tears she hadn't shed for twenty-eight swaps rolled down her cheeks.

"I'll rescue you," Cloud said. "I'll find a way." He leaned over her and paused, a silhouette of spiked hair against the stars, before kissing her on the cheek.

After he left, she wondered about the pause. Had he intended to kiss her lips? Would she have minded if he had?

She started counting stars. Her life had become defined by numbers (twenty-nine swaps, four years, he looks twenty-seven, he is sixteen), by firsts and repetitions. The stars were innumerable, eternal. She needed this certainty: she loved Cloud forever. She loved his desire to help, his courage, determination and resourcefulness and honesty. All that was still true. She just didn't know who she was describing anymore.

* * *

><p>The next morning Cloud didn't make breakfast.<p>

"I was so_ close_!" he said when he appeared at the top of the stairs. He was holding the most distant orders and had First Tsurugi in its usual place. He didn't say anything more before walking out the door.

Tifa had smiled in greeting; her cheeks started hurting after a few moments and she realized her face had frozen along with her thoughts. Mechanically she made lunch for Denzel and breakfast for one. It took her all morning staring at an empty orange juice glass to realize that the sword had looked strange on Cloud's back. It took her until closing time to accept that her Cloud had not, in fact, returned, but had just left.

* * *

><p>Three weeks later Cloud didn't appear in the morning. He'd never asked about her red eyes, like he'd never asked why the rest of Avalanche had stopped visiting. Like he never asked what happened while he was gone.<p>

Tifa did what she had always done. She cleaned, and made drinks, and took care of Denzel and her patrons and her guests. She loved Cloud. She promised herself her happiness would never rest entirely on anyone other than herself. She promised herself she would stop believing promises from Cloud Strife.

And she hoped.

The twelve stairs left her heart pounding harder than a battle with WEAPON. She knew Cloud was back when she walked in the room. He slept differently, when he was here. Her footsteps woke him up, as they always had, and she took a deep calming breath, before running over to him as he woke up.


	2. The best of all possible worlds

Zack and Sephiroth had been arguing for almost the entirety of the extremely long trip to the outskirts of Nibelheim. The argument had lasted so long because neither side had anything new to say. "We have no choice," Sephiroth had said as they walked up the long drive, which is how it had come to be that Zack was saying "But we have no right," even as he knocked on the door.

Both were nothing if not professional, which is why the argument stopped as soon as the door opened.

"We have nothing of value," said the man visible in the crack in the doorway. The firelight backlit the spiky hair and the rifle pointed at them. Zack and Sephiroth shared a glance which communicated that Zack should speak first.

"Heya, Cloud," he said. He put his hands up and spoke slowly, calmly. "We're not going to try to take any of your stuff. You might not remember me, but I'm Zack. We ran a few missions together back when you worked for ShinRa. This is Sephiroth I've got with me. You might remember him too."

He was slightly gratified that Cloud responded to him first. "Zack?" He sounded pleasantly surprised, which was honestly what Zack had expected. They had been pretty close, for a while. It made what he was going to ask harder, not easier.

"Yeah, Cloud. Listen, we've got a favor to ask," he said. "Can we come in?"

"Yeah, yes of course." The silhouette and the rifle disappeared from the door, which closed before Zack heard several chains being undone and the door opened again further.

"I don't believe it," Cloud said when the door was open and the firelight fell full on Zack's face. Instinctively Zack reached out to bump elbows, and laughed when Cloud matched the gesture, like the last ten years hadn't happened.

"General, sir," said Cloud, eyes sliding over Zack's shoulder.

"ShinRa is gone," said Sephiroth. "Most people just call me by name now."

"Tifa!" called Cloud over his shoulder. "We've got guests!"

A dark-haired woman stepped out of the shadows at the back of the room. Zack tilted his head. She looked familiar – and surely those curves couldn't exist on more than one woman left on the Planet.

"Zack, General Sephiroth sir," she smiled. "You might not remember me – I was your guide when you visited the Nibelheim reactor."

"Ah!" Zack snapped his fingers. "The cowgirl!"

Tifa blushed in the dim firelight. "We were all a little sillier then," she said.

"I'll get us some light," said Cloud. He flicked a switch a light turned on above them. Cloud and Tifa blinked in the sudden brightness, but Zack and Sephiroth's eyes adjusted more rapidly. They exchanged a glance and Zack shook his head briefly and violently. The light was an extravagance – an hour underneath it would be near a month's power ration. But Cloud had been a proud thing, even as a scrawny cadet. To deny the light would be an insult, even with Mako eyes. Instead, Zack cut straight to the chase.

"We've come for your help, Cloud," he said. "Can we sit and talk for a bit?"

* * *

><p>They pulled a solid, pre-Sighs table out from the kitchen and settled around it. Tifa left briefly to check on 'the kids.'<p>

"How many of you are there?" asked Sephiroth. He could say whatever nice things he liked about ShinRa being gone, but he never learned how to ask instead of debrief.

"Six kids right now," said Tifa.

"We're well within Hojo's Law," assured Cloud. "The Nibelheim reactor never took much so the Lifestream is still strong here. We've had as many as twelve kids without any Sighs."

"A lot of children are still without parents in the area," Tifa added quietly. "We're fortunate to have a place we can take them in."

"You don't really need my help," Cloud cut back to Zack's comment, finding difficulty in the idea.

"We do," said Sephiroth.

"And Tifa, if she can," said Zack. "That was a lucky break." Cloud looked dubious. "We're trying to stop the Sighs," said Zack.

"Nothing can stop the Sighs," said Cloud. "Hojo himself said so. The Planet is too damaged. Not even if we cultivate like the Ancients."

"It's true," said Sephiroth. "And what they didn't announce is that they will likely only get worse. We are almost certainly doomed, within a century."

"So we have a better plan," said Zack, before their hosts' surprise could turn to despair. "We are going to make them never happen."

"How?" asked Tifa.

Zack grinned. This was the fun part. "We have a time machine," he said.

It took people a while to believe that one. Zack wasn't sure it would have gone over with Cloud, who knew how much he used to like to joke, if it wasn't for Sephiroth backing him, military and serious.

"We can't send anything ridiculous back, like a person," said Zack. "Mostly it's more like a pulse, an energy. But it goes through the lifestream, so it has to connect to a person. And we've done some tests, we can send back basically a thought, or an emotion."

"So, you're going to send back an emotion, which will somehow stop the Sighs?" asked Tifa.

"Who can you connect to? What can one different mood do?" asked Cloud.

"It will connect to me," said Sephiroth. He smirked slightly. "My loyalty to ShinRa wasn't ever particularly strong. We're going to try to break it. And without me, ShinRa wouldn't have won Cosmo Canyon or Fort Condor or the Crater."

Cloud's eyes widened. "Or Wutai," he speculated.

Zack grimaced. "We can't go that far back," he said. "There's a limit, and it's about a decade, so just after Wutai."

"Oh," said Cloud. "I think I get it, but what would you want my help with?"

Low self-esteem still, thought Zack. Cloud never figured out that it took someone strong just to survive the Sighs, let alone escape them and make a life.

"It's the Nibelheim mission," said Sephiroth. "It was…emotionally disruptive." Zack felt a moment of pity. Sephiroth was always so private, and to explain a moment of weakness to all involved in the project was hard for him, every time. "I feel I could turn myself against ShinRa at that time," continued the General.

"We're trying to gather everybody who was there and is still alive together," said Zack. "So, in case anything goes wrong, we know how you'd react – control as many variables as possible."

There was a long silence. Cloud and Tifa looked at each other, and Zack wondered what exactly they were. Childhood friends, Cloud had told him. A massive crush, Cloud hadn't needed to tell him. But now? They didn't seem like a couple. But close.

"We'll help," said Cloud.

Zack breathed a sigh of relief, and held back a sigh of regret. And after that, it was only preparations. The damn lightbulb was turned off, Cloud packed bags for himself and Tifa and each of the orphans, while Tifa called someone who could take care of the kids for a while. Zack stood at the margins with Sephiroth, watching Cloud slowly dismantle the life he had built.

"We have no right," he whispered. It wasn't to anyone in particular, but Sephiroth responded anyway. "We have no choice."

* * *

><p>The trip back wasn't as long as the trip out – with four people they had to move quickly, and send up flares often. The Sighs didn't usually take people unless they settled in an area, but with four, moving through deadland, they were pushing it. Hojo's Law stated they should keep moving at least 16 hours a day, and if any traveler saw the flare and didn't change their course, they'd likely all be taken. It didn't leave much time for conversation, but Zack managed, with a little help from Tifa. Sephiroth could go days without talking, and Cloud had always been pretty quiet.<p>

"I never knew why you left, Cloud," he said one night, in the stolen exhausted moments between stopping and sleeping.

Cloud paused, for so long that Zack began to think he would actually not answer at all.

"I joined ShinRa to be in SOLDIER," he said. "But after Modeoheim, and Nibelheim…" he paused again. "I knew I would never be that strong," he said, with a quick embarrassed glance at Sephiroth, "and…I wasn't sure I wanted what came with it."

"Well, you had good timing," said Zack, more bitterness than he usually allowed seeping into his voice. "I wondered for a while if you knew what was coming."

"We can't all be Barret Wallace," said Cloud with a rueful smile. "I was just lucky. Word of the Midgar and Junon sighs reached me in Cosmo, and I was between towns when they hit the canyon and Nibelheim."

"How did you survive, Miss Lockheart?" asked Sephiroth

"I was still a guide," she said. She frowned at the formal address but had learned to stop trying to dissuade him from using it. "I was up in the mountains with some people who wanted to live alone, go back to nature. I thought they were crazy, but when I came back down…" she shook her head. "I was still trying to figure out what to do when Cloud showed up." She smiled softly at him. "My hero."

Cloud flushed again. "The Sighs were still leaving children, so there were a lot of orphans," he changed the subject quickly. "We spent a little time burying people and organizing, and then split up when we heard about Hojo's Law."

"May he walk on the Planet forever," said Tifa, and Sephiroth snorted and walked away from the fire.

"Hojo's Law saved a lot of lives," said Zack carefully, loudly enough that Sephiroth could hear, but the conversation was over.

* * *

><p>The compound always astounded people the first time.<p>

"You can't have a population this dense," said Cloud. He and Tifa tensed, looking ready to run.

"We have an advantage," explained Sephiroth. but Zack hardly heard. He bounded through the entrance. She was always waiting for him – she knew when he'd be back the same way she knew a hundred other impossible things.

"Aerith!" he called, sweeping her up for a spin. "Did you miss me?" He grinned before dipping her for a theatric kiss. They were both laughing when they broke apart, but he had to set her down gently. She looked pale, he thought. She looked paler every time he looked away from her. He shook off his worry with an effort.

"Cloud, Tifa, this is my girl," he announced proudly. "Aerith is the reason we can all live here. The Planet won't take the last Ancient."

Cloud and Tifa looked at Aerith and the compound with wide eyes. It must have been years and years, Zack thought, since they had seen healthy plants growing, or more than five adults gathered. Seven, Zack corrected, as "Don't I merit an introduction?" asked a smooth voice behind him.

"And that's Rufus," said Zack carelessly. "And Reno," he added without looking.

"We are very grateful for your help," said Rufus ShinRa, bowing over Tifa's hand and giving Cloud a solemn nod. "I'll want to talk to you all once you have settled in," he said. He left the courtyard, red shadow behind him as always.

"I thought you said ShinRa was gone," hissed Cloud to Sephiroth. "Technically I'm still a deserter,"

Sephiroth looked amused. "ShinRa is gone. Rufus still knows where all their warehouses are, though. Even the ones that don't appear in any records. He's been very helpful. And this is hardly the time to discuss the status of your leaving a defunct company."

"Who was the other man?" asked Tifa, looking after them.

"That was the Turk," said Zack, explaining. It wasn't a good story. He'd been close with the Turks, but most of them were in Midgar when the first Sigh hit. Then when the second Sigh hit Junon, Reno had just barely gotten the then-brand new ShinRa president out. The Sigh had just reached the back of the helicopter, where his partner Rude sat. Reno took duties as the last Turk very seriously. Even that hurt sometimes to see, as Reno had never taken much seriously before.

"I can show you your rooms," said Aerith. "I tried to brighten them up a bit, but we all basically live in barracks. These two wouldn't know the difference," she teased Zack.

"Anything you brighten up is the best on the Planet," Zack grinned down at his girl. His beautiful, fragile girl.

* * *

><p>People always trickled slowly into conferences. At the beginning they were still afraid of gathering so many in one place: now most of the people simply hoped to be the last to arrive, and minimize the time spent with anyone else. Saving the world is not something that makes easy friends, Zack thought. He smiled slightly at Rufus and Reno as they entered, then schooled his face into blankness as Hojo followed.<p>

Or maybe it was just Hojo that doesn't make easy friends, Zack reconsidered.

Sephiroth followed a few minutes later, and Hojo's face brightened.

"Did you encounter any other travelers?" He asked. Hojo had a theory that the Sighs wouldn't take Sephiroth, like they wouldn't take Aerith, but no-one had let him test it at the compound, so he kept hoping that Sephiroth would run into some people while traveling and test it inadvertently.

"No," said Sephiroth shortly.

"A pity," said Hojo. Sephiroth's eyes narrowed, but then Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith entered.

"I think we should begin," said Rufus. "I am assuming our new guests were partially briefed on the way here, so we'll go over recent developments." He turned to Reno.

"The other cadet is definitely dead," said the Turk. I found a survivor who said he was in Midgar. So we have everyone."

"The planet is weaker yet," said Aerith, to his right. "It doesn't feel angry enough to change the Sigh patterns yet, but I don't think it's far away. This morning…I couldn't walk for the first several hours. We'll have to go to a skeleton staff for the connection, I think."

Cloud or Tifa must have looked confused, because Sephiroth volunteered an explanation. "Aerith is…in tune with the planet. It won't hurt her, but she feels it's pain, and weakens with it." He paused. "I feel a much reduced version of the same phenomenon," he confessed.

None of them had liked this at the beginning. But lots of people at the boundaries of the compound had died in the early days, when Aerith was pretending to be strong and didn't tell them of the weakness that preceded a Sigh.

"If you would let me experiment with the range of her protection or the extent of Sephiroth's, we wouldn't have to rely on such imprecise measurements," said Hojo.

"I do not repeat my father's mistakes," said Rufus. "What do you have to report?"

"All tests are within an acceptable error margin," said Hojo dismissively.

"I doubt your measure of 'acceptable,'" spat Sephiroth.

"I been watchin' him, boss," said Reno. He spoke quietly, to Rufus, but the room listened. "I don't think we're ever gonna have a better chance. We only have three kits, though."

Rufus nodded. "We didn't know you would be coming, Miss Lockheart," he said. "We prepared extra kits, so if Sephiroth's influence were not enough we could influence another person in Nibelheim. But we only have three. I believe Zack is essential. Do you or Mr. Strife have a preference?"

Cloud and Tifa glanced at each other. "I'll do it," said Cloud, as Tifa said "Cloud." Zack smiled. They weren't a couple, he had decided. But it was good to see two people so close…in tune. It made him smile at Aerith. It made his heart ache for Sephiroth, now that Angeal and Genesis were gone so long.

"As Miss Gainsborough has told us, there is little time to waste," said Rufus. "I suggest you recover from your travels tomorrow, and we make our first attempt the following morning."

Zack sat back in his chair. It was scary, after all of these months, to be so close.

"If we have no further business, I suggest we adjourn," said Rufus. Sephiroth was the first out of the room, and Zack counted it as a success – he had only snapped at Hojo twice. There had been worse meetings, before Rufus learned how to keep them short and keep Hojo as silent as possible.

"If we stop the sighs, won't we erase this world?" said Cloud. "It's awful, but should we decide for everyone-"

"We can't modify our own past, fool," cut in Hojo. "It's the resonance that will let us get back to proper work." He stalked out of the room.

"It's the lifestream," Aerith elaborated, after he was gone. "By its nature, it exists between worlds. If we can create a healthy lifestream in a closely related world, we can help our own."

"It's not leaching," reassured Zack, seeing the look on Tifa's face. "We can both help each other, if we can just make the connection."

"I mean it about getting rest," said Rufus as he too left. "The next few days will be important, for all of us."

* * *

><p>Zack smiled at Cloud as he was fitted with a crown. The equipment for the time travel was strange, exposed wires connecting to materia at certain points ("They're confluence points," Aerith had explained. She giggled as she poked him in the chest, inside the elbows, outside of the pelvis. "It's where your own portion of the lifestream flows the strongest") and the crown. The crown had enough materia that buying it would have bankrupted a SOLDIER, before possessing or using materia at all became illegal.<p>

"Is this really nece - is that Knights of the Round?" asked Cloud, going cross-eyed trying to look at his own forehead.

"Good call!" smiled Zack. "You're a natural."

"I didn't think Knights of the Round actually existed…"

"The summon centers the equipment," explained Sephiroth, pointing at Neo-Bahamut on his own forehead. "They've got enough…personality to pull the rest of the materia into cooperation with us."

"And since you're newest to the idea, you get the best support," added Zack. "I bet Sephiroth could get by with Choco-Mog by now."

"Any summon can do the job," said Sephiroth, but his slight smile left as Hojo entered the room.

"The generators are starting up," he said. "Sit down."

They all sat, and Zack watched as Sephiroth closed his eyes and simply – wasn't there any more. His body sat empty.

"We're connected," said Hojo, and Nibelheim appeared on the screen before them.

"My mother is Jenova," said Sephiroth from the screen.

"That's incredible," said Tifa. "How is it possible?"

Hojo just shot her an irritated glance. "It's the whole lifestream that's connected," explained Zack. "It's just that Sephiroth is now the closest point of connection. We were able to get a clear picture of what was happening even when it was only a rat that-" He broke off at the sound of pounding feet.

"It's Aerith," gasped the tech who ran into the room. "When the generators went on."

He probably continued, but Zack was already out of the room and down the hall.

Aerith was curled in a fetal position on the bed, breathing shallowly. Her eyes were open but unfocused.

"We're gonna make it alright," said Zack, settling on the bed beside her. "We'll make you a strong friend to prop you up." He smoothed her hair. "Give her a reason to live," had been the advice after the first time the planet tried to take the compound.

"And you'll never have to carry us again," said Zack. He kissed her hair and held her close until she stirred and relaxed into a natural sleep.

* * *

><p>When Zack returned the screen was blank and the room was empty, so he went to find someone to tell him what had happened. Tifa was the first person he saw, standing just around the corner.<p>

"Tifa!" he jogged up and smiled. "How'd we do?"

She looked at him, and he saw tear-streaks on her face. The world stopped for a moment.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, Zack," she said. "I don't want to be around SOLDIER right now. Ask someone else."

She was gone before he could process her statement. What had SOLDIER ever done to Tifa?

He found Sephiroth next, and Cloud with him. Sephiroth sat on a bench in the compound's small garden, with his head in his hands. Cloud hovered nearby, seemingly unsure whether he should get closer or run away.

"What happened?" asked Zack. "Didn't it work?"

Sephiroth made a sound into his hands. Cloud looked vastly uncomfortable. "It worked," he said. "Very well." He glanced at Sephiroth, then continued.

"Sephiroth said he sent betrayal and anger at ShinRa while he – or, past he – was reading Hojo's reports in the mansion." Zack nodded. That was the plan. "But then he – or, past he –"

"It was me," interrupted Sephiroth. He looked up at Zack. "This—that time around, I burned down Nibelheim. I killed Cloud's mother and Tifa's father. Then I went up to the reactor and killed you." His voice was calm, eyes clear and empty.

Zack's first thought was, bizarrely, pity. Sephiroth had never botched anything in his life, and for his first mistake to be this – he would never forgive himself, Zack thought. Then the rest of it caught up. "That's why we had Cloud, right," he said, trying not to think of himself on the wrong end of the Masamune. He and Sephiroth had been – not quite friends, then, but the closest Sephiroth had outside of Genesis and Angeal.

"I tried to be strong, and determined," said Cloud. "I got myself up to the reactor, and then I…I stabbed him in the back. He's dead. Past him."

Zack stared. "You killed Sephiroth," he said, an unflattering edge of disbelief in his voice. Cloud fiddled with his hands. "…and then I threw him into the reactor." he said.

* * *

><p>This time, no one was late to the conference room.<p>

"Twelve of the staff have deserted," reported Reno. "That's out of the skeleton staff, so it'll be a risk to try to connect again without hunting some of them down."

Rufus nodded grimly and turned to Aerith. "The planet is quiet again," she said. "I'm sorry, I didn't know the generators would have such an effect-"

"None of us knew what would happen," interrupted Rufus. Zack knew she blamed herself for pulling him out. If he'd been able to connect, give his other self some knowledge of Sephiroth, would it have helped? But he couldn't have left Aerith alone. The safety of the compound was a good excuse, but he knew he would have gone to her regardless.

"I have nothing to report," said Sephiroth dully, next in line. He had barely responded to anything since yesterday. Zack couldn't even convince him to leave the garden. He'd left the two of them almost exactly as he found them, Cloud's wide shell-shocked eyes following his movements but making no move himself. For all Zack knew he'd come straight to the conference from there.

"I believe we have two options," said Rufus, skipping over Hojo. "We may leave things stand as they are. This is not unacceptable. If you'll pardon my bluntness, ShinRa is now without two of its best SOLDIERs. The other two firsts had also deserted by this time, leaving the company with no first Class left. This may be sufficient. Alternatively, we may attempt to connect using Reno or myself."

Hojo shifted, and Rufus addressed him "I know you said it would be more difficult, because of the changes in our personalities and priorities, but it is certainly not impossible."

"It is," said Hojo. "We cannot connect anyone else."

Everyone turned to look at him, and he smiled thinly. "We have forged too strong a connection with Mr. Strife," he said. "It continues to grow, indicating his alter ego is in close contact with the lifestream."

Rufus frowned. "That never-" he began, but Cloud spoke over him.

"But, I died," said Cloud. Zack started and looked at him. That bit he hadn't heard yesterday.

"I've seen wounds like that. You don't survive. Not the Masamune." Cloud continued his denial. Sephiroth killed Cloud too. Neither one of them had mentioned that.

"I am sure you know better than I what the machine I designed is telling me," interrupted Hojo. He glanced around the room. "We will never survive this if we do not accept what is clearly the truth. I could always do some experiments, see if we can break the connection from this side."

"No," said Zack, Sephiroth, and Rufus together. Hojo smiled again. "Then it looks as though we have only one option," he said.

Rufus pinched the bridge of his nose, which Zack knew meant a headache. "We'll observe for a month," he said. "Then we'll…reconsider other options. Meeting adjourned."

Tifa caught up to him halfway down the hall. "I'm sorry, Zack," she said. "It was a lot to take in, but I'm not going to swear revenge or anything, like she did." This at least Zack had learned yesterday. Tifa had died – probably – after swearing revenge on ShinRa.

"It's not something anyone is going to react well to," he said. "We're all doing the best we can."

* * *

><p>It was the next day when Hojo told them something was changing with the connection. Cloud sat nervously, looking silly as the only one wearing the wires, materia, and crown. "Don't try to send anything," said Hojo. "We don't even know if it will work to the same person twice. Just watch." Cloud nodded, and an image flickered up on the screen. It was a bar. "Marlene," yelled a large black man standing next to Cloud.<p>

"That's…Barrett Wallace," said Rufus, in the room this time.

"Are you sure?" asked Zack. None of them had met him. They all knew the story though, of the visionary, decrying the dangers of mako, only to be 'disappeared' before the message became too dangerous. Not before everyone knew him enough to remember him when the Sighs came. Rufus nodded grimly.

"Barrett Wallace! If Cloud's with him then maybe we're alright," said Zack.

"What is Cloud doing?" asked Tifa, "Do you see this?"

On the screen Cloud appeared to be bartering for money, and…wearing a First's uniform?

"What?" said Zack.

"I think that's me," said Tifa, pointing to the woman behind the bar. "But she's older. This would have to be at least four years after you visited Nibelheim."

As one, they turned to look at Hojo. "I can't be sure without running some tests," he tried.

"Guess," said Zack, Sephiroth, and Rufus together.

"If he was exposed to high levels of mako, he could have entered a mako coma," said Hojo. "That would explain the behavioral changes, the advanced wound healing, and the disconnect between our time and that world's."

"Oh, Cloud," said Tifa, turning back to the screen.

It had been decided that he shouldn't stay connected too long, because things they didn't want might bleed over. So Cloud blinked out of it just after they were certain that between four and seven years had passed, they were in Midgar, and Cloud was hired by Barrett for some sort of demolition.

"He was so cold, inside," said Cloud, when he stood up. "And there were parts that – I swear, they weren't me."

"The things that happened must have changed you," said Zack.

Cloud looked at him, then shook his head. "You were - it was – nevermind."

* * *

><p>"I told the story as though I were Zack," said Cloud. "It was weird. And there was this red dog-thing, but he talked…"<p>

"Did he have a tattoo, around one leg?" asked Sephiroth.

"I think so," said Cloud. "Mostly we noticed the thirteen, that Hojo put there."

Sephiroth hadn't reacted well to the idea that Hojo was apparently trying to clone him. He hadn't reacted well to seeing the Masamune in the old President ShinRa's back. He wasn't reacting well to much. He'd stopped coming when they monitored the connection, or to the meetings they now held weekly.

"Did you know him?" asked Cloud.

"If it was Nanaki, I killed him in the conquest of Cosmo Canyon," said Sephiroth.

"And that's not the only weird thing," said Cloud, changing the subject quickly. "I keep flirting with Aerith, when I know that's…really not my thing. And she said almost the same things to me as Zack. I wish I knew what she was thinking."

Zack wished he knew too. His own Aerith didn't know. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but Cloud wasn't talking much to people either, and he just wanted to know what at least one other person was thinking.

"And why didn't Tifa say anything when I talked about Nibelheim?"

There was a pause, and Zack stepped around the corner, expecting an awkward silence. What he saw was Cloud holding a sword, with Sephiroth wrapped around behind adjusting his grip.

"Zack!" said Cloud, flushing. Sephiroth made a point of finishing his adjustment before stepping away. "I asked Sephiroth if he could help me with a sword," said Cloud. "I figure if other me can do it, so can I."

Zack did not mention that he would be the better person to go to for tips on using a buster sword. Cloud had started acting guilty around him, saying more than once that other Cloud was stealing his memories, or identity, or girlfriend, or something. But Zack just smiled.

"Sephiroth is a good teacher," he said. And it was really the best thing anyone had thought of to do for Sephiroth, too. He had taken over training some of the seconds after the battles at Cosmo Canyon, before the Sighs made population dense enough for training too dangerous, and Zack hadn't seen him happier. It was a purpose outside of war. The sort of purpose he had thought he'd found here, but lost.

"I was looking for you," Zack continued to Cloud. "Tifa wanted to talk about what you saw in Nibelheim and Kalm, try to work out what's going on in her head. Other her."

"Right," said Cloud. He left with not exactly spring but purpose in his step, reducing the guilt Zack felt for pulling him away from his hard-built life to this compound where they might all die when the planet decided Aerith wasn't worth keeping .

"I'm glad he talks to you," Zack said to Sephiroth. He wasn't sure for whose sake he was gladder.

Sephiroth met his eyes and almost smiled, which was more than Zack had seen for years. "As am I," he said.

* * *

><p>Yuffie was the next person to join other Cloud. In the present, she was still alive, but, "She won't come here," Rufus said. "Wutai didn't have as many reactors, so they still have some population left. She keeps moving to keep order without a centralized government. They revere her as the Traveling Queen. She wouldn't leave her people, particularly not to help us."<p>

This was the first meeting that Tifa sat next to Rufus, rather than Cloud. It was a week before Sephiroth joined them again, and a week after that that other Cloud ran into Cait Sith.

"It's obviously a robot," said Tifa.

"It looks familiar," said Rufus.

"I think that's Reeve's toy," said the Turk, squinting at a picture.

"The one with the accent!" Rufus said. "It's sitting on the mog. You're right." He smiled at Reno, who sat back in his chair.

"Then…he works for ShinRa," said Cloud. "He's a spy," said Sephiroth.

"So it would seem," said Rufus.

"Can we ask Reeve what he would be doing?" asked Cloud.

"Reeve died in the first sigh," said Rufus.

"Well, you would be giving his orders now," said Tifa "What would you tell him to do?"

"Nothing good," said Rufus grimly. Tifa looked at him, confused.

"I am a ShinRa," he said. "I can learn from nearly destroying the planet, but don't believe for a moment that I always thought like this. Don't forget that I would authorize experimentation on your friend if I decide we need to connect with somebody else."

He stood up and left the room, Reno drifting silently behind.

The next week they found Vincent.

"Vincent Valentine could not help us in this," said Hojo. "He doesn't know his own thoughts well enough to predict his responses. And he is dead."

"How do you know?" asked Rufus patiently. He alone had learned to deal well with Hojo's constant insinuations of private knowledge.

"I returned to the Nibelheim lab several years ago," Hojo said. "I gathered some supplies and checked. The Sighs had taken him, with the rest of the town. I had always hoped that someday I might be able to return to that experiment…" he sighed wistfully. "I will simply have to observe this other version."

They all shuddered.

And the next week came Cid.

"He just keeps finding new friends!" exclaimed Aerith

"But they're no use," said Reno. "Cid Highwind is dead too."

Everyone looked at him, so he elaborated. "When it became clear things were getting bad, we looked into re-fitting the rocket to get out. It was a long shot, but death here seemed certain."

He took a deep breath. "Cid didn't want anyone getting near the rocket. And one of the muscle killed this lady engineer who wouldn't let them check on the fuel tanks. After that, Highwind just went a little berserk, yo? He killed about a dozen before we put him down."

"So we can't get any more information from elsewhere. We still have three of the party here," said Rufus. "And although ShinRa has not collapsed, it hasn't expanded either. We saw Fort Condor and Cosmo Canyon whole. There is hope that our sister planet may yet save us."

That was the week before Sephiroth killed Aerith.

* * *

><p>Zack avoided him for a little while afterwards. It was just – he had smiled. He had almost gotten Cloud to kill her, and they <em>still<em> didn't know what had happened in those five years while Cloud was getting mako poisoning, and he had _smiled_ as he pulled the sword out, right at the observers in the room. Cloud had been shaking when he'd woken up out of that connection, and he'd still gone the garden where Sephiroth hid.

Zack had left the compound to go beat up some rocks. There weren't even proper monsters around to kill any more.

He sat in the dust he'd made, and didn't acknowledge when Tifa sat beside him.

"He's not the same person," she said, finally.

"_He_ thinks he is," said Zack. It wasn't what he meant to say, and came out bitter and tired.

"If he were, he'd know what he was planning, or what that mess at the Temple of the Ancients was all about,' said Tifa. "Rufus isn't proud of it, but he knows generally what he would be planning. I can imagine swearing revenge. Aerith even knows enough to guess that the other her is- was trying to figure out how Cloud related to you. I don't even know him but I can see Barrett Wallace becoming a terrorist if he hadn't died. But Sephiroth…he looks at the screen and he just doesn't understand. I think that means something."

"We don't know all of ourselves," said Zack. "But that doesn't mean it isn't still us."

"You told me we're all trying to deal with this the best we can," said Tifa, "I guess there's just going to have to be a lot of forgiving going around."

Zack remembered that she had continued to sit next to Rufus, despite his claims about letting Hojo go after Cloud. She seemed to know his thoughts.

"If it's Aerith you're worried about, don't you think you should hear what she has to say?"

And what Aerith had to say, he discovered when he returned to the compound, was that he was a Sigh-bait idiot.

"I just needed some space," he said.

"You don't need to be angry for me." And when Aerith read his mind it wasn't a surprise like Tifa.

"What we changed, that's what made other you die."

"No, me dying hasn't changed," she said, and smiled at him. There were creases around her eyes now, and her hair was getting thinner. The days she used a wheelchair were more common than the ones she didn't.

"Things'll look up there soon," he promised. "We'll get you better."

Then Sephiroth summoned Meteor.

* * *

><p>Then Sephiroth summoned Meteor, and Zack found him standing over Hojo's body.<p>

"Do you know…how many _years_ I've wanted to kill him?" asked Sephiroth.

"Yes," said Zack. There was a lot of blood. "And you did it now because…?" There was a wild look in Sephiroth's eyes that he only really recognized from the screen of the other world.

"Always, remember your honor as SOLDIER," quoted Sephiroth. "And he saved us all, at first. But it doesn't look like I have honor, or care about saving people, or-" he broke off, looking at the corpse. "It was so _easy_," he said.

"I know why you did it now," said Zack, and Sephiroth looked at him absently. "Meteor is going to destroy the other world, unless we can stop it. But that would mean connecting with someone else, and…experiments…to find out how to break Cloud's connection."

"I don't care if he hurts me," said Sephiroth. "It doesn't matter anymore. But he got bored with Vincent, he was getting bored with me, and I could see him looking at Cloud." He looked at Zack again, and it was almost normal. "You understand, right?"

"Here's what we're going to do," said Zack. "You're gonna get the body out of here, I'm going to clean this place up, and we're both going to pretend Hojo disappeared when he'd be most useful, ok? Rufus isn't gonna make this choice, and people will guess, but as long as no one else sees you with blood all over you it doesn't matter. Nobody's going to cry over him."

"Do you understand?" asked Sephiroth.

"We're going to clean this up, okay?" he shook Sephiroth's shoulders. "Okay?"

Eventually, Sephiroth nodded. As they bundled the body up to dispose of, Zack thought of the saying about best friends and hiding bodies. He had better get best friend for this, he thought.

* * *

><p>Cloud was in Midgar trying to find the Sister Ray when he ran into the Turks again. This was the first time they had watched while it happened, but they knew he had run into the Turks before.<p>

Everyone was riveted to the screen. They would know soon whether their sister Planet would help them or doom them. It was a key moment, Zack supposed, but he thought…he turned to his side and saw Reno crying. It was totally silent, because he was a near perfect Turk by this point, but it hurt, just to see. Reno's hand twitched in an aborted movement towards the screen.

"Remember the spirit of the Turks!" Elena said.

Suddenly, Zack was meeting Rufus's eyes in front of Reno. His eyes twitched towards the screen in an obvious command and Zack looked obediently away. He didn't even turn around when he heard the door open and close. The Turks protect the president all the time, he thought. It's only right he should return the favor every once in a while.

They stayed connected through Cloud and Vincent confronting and killing Hojo. Sephiroth stood stiff and silent next to him.

Hojo's dead, thought Zack. ShinRa's all but dead, the Turks are still together. If Cloud can just stop Meteor, I think we'll have done it. He remembered sparring with Sephiroth when they had both cared enough. He wasn't sure anything could stop that. But he'd seen the way other Cloud fought, too. Other Hojo had done something during the five years mako-sleep, even if they still weren't quite sure what it was. It was a toss-up, he decided.

"I guess next time we connect we'll know," said Cloud, blinking out of the connection trance.

* * *

><p>They all stood silently, facing the screen. Cloud sat back and with a practiced gesture slipped quietly – away. The connection flickered to life and-<p>

Cloud was standing on the bridge of the Highwind. Red and white light bathed the faces of everyone in the room, watching their fate unfold.

"That's Holy," said Aerith, clutching her mother's materia in one hand.

"They did it," said Rufus, sounding massively relieved.

"It's too late for Holy," said Nanaki, on the deck of the airship.

A small group of horrified people watched a smaller group of horrified people watching the greatest city on the Planet be destroyed.

"We need to worry about the whole Planet," said Nanaki.

That's when it happened. Zack's mouth fell open. He had seen his share of mako springs, before they all dried up, but this was – unreal. Green light replaced the white, and the red, and Cloud and Tifa and everyone else on the airship. This was a planet that wasn't crippled, he thought. They really had done it. Seeing the lifestream destroy the meteor was almost superfluous – what could possibly have stood before that? He had forgotten what the power of the Planet was supposed to be. Not lifestream reclaimed in a single last breath, but this green flood filling the sky.

Dimly he registered cheers from the remaining techs at the compound. He swung Aerith in a circle, and beyond her face he spotted Rufus and Tifa kissing – when had that happened? The next go round the Turk stood between Zack and Rufus. He shrugged and figured now was a good time to do some kissing of his own. Aerith smiled at him, and he knew it was impossible but he swore her hair was already shining again.

"Thank you," said Sephiroth when Cloud opened his eyes. He offered a hand up.

"I didn't do anything," said Cloud, "He did. It was - I don't think I'll ever be like him."

Zack rolled his eyes. Cloud couldn't even accept he was as good as himself. He caught Sephiroth's frown but realized, with a jolt, that they would have a future in which to work on that. "I sure hope not," he said for now, slinging an arm around Cloud and Sephiroth's shoulders, as Aerith linked arms with Rufus and Tifa. "That guy is seriously screwed up."


End file.
